Across a Thousand Miles (5 page)

“Can you sit up?” she asked.

“I'm sorry to be so much trouble,” he said.

She ignored his apology. Since sitting was obviously painful for him, she propped all the pillows behind him, until he was in a half-reclining position. “I made this for you. I figured it would help you sleep.”

He accepted it and sniffed. “Rum?”

“Rum and milk. Is there such a drink?”

“If you made it, I guess there is.” He took a sip and swallowed.

“Is it okay?”

“It's just fine.”

“How are you feeling?”

He took another sip and considered her question care
fully. “Like a half-ton pickup sat on my chest,” he replied. “How are my dogs?”

“They're fine. You can see them tomorrow. They're out in my truck, fed and watered.”

“Thank you. More than I can ever say.”

Rebecca stood. “Can I get you anything else?”

He shook his head. “I appreciate everything you've done. And I'll be out of here soon, I promise you.” She nodded and turned toward the door. “Hey,” he said, and she looked back. “Was Fred Turner there when you got to my cabin?”

Rebecca shook her head. “There were no tracks in the snow, and your woodstove was two days cold. And you'd better lay in a few more bottles of whiskey for the winter. Looked to me like Fred found your stash.” She smiled briefly and closed the cabin door gently behind her.

 

H
IS DREAMS OPENED
doors to his past that he kept tightly closed when he was awake. In his dreams he relived every awful moment of that awful time. When he awoke it took him minutes, hours, days, sometimes, to close all the doors, to rebuild and fortify the walls that kept him safe, kept him sane.

This morning he lay in soft-breathing stillness, staring up at the hand-hewn planks of the bunk above him. The stove still held a fire, but its warmth was ineffective. The light through the thickly frosted window was dim and gray. It was early, very quiet, and very cold. Callie shivered at his feet.

Mac moved tentatively, shifting his upper body on the hard, lumpy mattress, and caught his breath. No doubt about it. Having a truck fall on you was a seriously painful business. Of course, if he hadn't been so stupid about
overloading his truck, none of this would have happened. Even worse that it had to happen right in front of
her.

Rebecca regarded him as a cheechako and she was right. He was definitely the idiot of the North, completely out of his element. A few months ago he'd been in the Persian Gulf flying one of the most advanced technical fighters off one of the most advanced Nimitz carriers, and now he was lying on a bunk in Yukon Territory with a bunch of broken ribs at the mercy of a woman who didn't care for him one little bit, in a land so hostile that all he had to do was walk out into it and he could quite easily die.

He shifted his legs beneath the thick wool blankets. He couldn't just lie here. If he had to crawl back to his brother's cabin, he'd crawl. A man had his pride, after all. Sometimes it was the only thing in the world he had. The effort cost him, but he made it as far as the stove, where he fed two split chunks of dry spruce onto the bed of coals and closed the door. He knelt in front of it with the blanket around his waist, shivering, his breath making little frost plumes in the cold cabin air. If this was technically still autumn, what would winter be like? Would he still be alive then, or would wolves be gnawing on his bones?

The cabin door opened and he glanced up. It was Rebecca.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Stern, disapproving voice.

“Freezing to death,” he replied.

She was carrying a coffeepot and two cups and looked bright and alert, as if she'd been awake for hours. She had walked bareheaded and without a parka from the
main cabin, and her hair fell in a thick, glossy tumble clear to her waist.

“I brought coffee,” she said, scrutinizing him. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel just fine,” Mac said.

“Oh, yes, and you look just fine, too. Actually, your dog looks a lot better than you do. I'll bring her a bowl of food in a little bit.” She set the coffeepot and mugs on the stove and then helped him to his feet with a strength that her small stature belied. “Get back into bed.” She guided him to the bunk and steadied him while he sat. Sitting was still painful, but he didn't move while she poured him a cup of coffee, black, no sugar, and handed it to him.

“Thank you.” He cradled the mug between his palms, relishing the warmth that radiated from it. The coffee smelled wonderful. Rich and fragrant. He tasted it, and something inside of him eased. “This is very good.”

She poured herself a cup and gazed at him over the rim. Steam curled up and wreathed her face. She was without a doubt the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes upon. Rebecca Reed had the kind of beauty that came from within. He lowered his eyes, afraid of what might be showing in them. “It's twenty below zero and clear,” she said. “The rivers should freeze up soon.”

His brother Brian had talked a lot about the rivers, one in particular. “My brother calls the Yukon a drifter's river,” he said. “A river of dreams.”

She smiled through the steam. “Bruce and I paddled a canoe down it from Whitehorse to Dawson. Everyone should do that at least once in a lifetime. It mellows the soul.”

Bruce. Her dead husband. Mac took another swallow of coffee. It didn't taste quite as good this time. He
glanced at her hand, noting the gold wedding band she still wore. “Must have been a good trip.”

“It was a great trip. Our honeymoon.” She fiddled with the stove's dampers and stuffed two more pieces of birch into the firebox. The stove began to roar like a blast furnace, the metal ticking rhythmically as it heated. “I should drive you into Dawson today for X rays.”

“No need. I feel fine.”

“You look flushed. My guess is you're running a fever.”

“Can't be. I'm freezing to death. Where are my clothes, by the way?”

“Ellin took them. They needed a bath. Sam and Ellin have loads of hot water and a washer and dryer, thanks to a big propane water heater and a huge diesel generator. They have a shower, too, which Ellin forces me to use from time to time.”

“That must be hard to take.”

“Sheer torture. I can only stand it for about thirty minutes at a time.” He noticed that she almost smiled. “I have a sauna here and it's great, my clients love it, but it's just not the same.” She rose to her feet. “When I'm done feeding and watering, I'm going to run some dogs. I'll bring you breakfast before getting started and I should be back by two. Will you be all right by yourself?”

“I'll be fine. I'm sorry to be such trouble.” Rebecca nodded and began to leave, taking her coffee mug with her. “Rebecca,” he said. She paused and turned. “You have to believe me when I tell you I'm not usually like this.”

Her eyebrows raised slightly. “Like what? Half-naked and freezing to death?”

Mac drew the wool blanket more tightly around his
waist, and felt his color deepen. “I'm not usually such a nuisance. I'm actually a fairly intelligent, capable, self-reliant man, and I have good common sense.”

“You do?” she said.

“Yes, ma'am. I'm loaded with it.”

This time the smile made it to her lips, and they curved in a most delicious way. “Well,” she said, “you certainly couldn't prove it by me.”

And then she was gone, taking her smile and its sunshine with her.

R
EBECCA WAS STILL SMILING
three hours later, twenty miles down the trail. The dogs were trotting smoothly, moving through the fresh snow as if it wasn't there. She had put Cookie and Raven up in lead, two young females with loads of drive and intelligence, and they were doing a great job. The sky was a deep vault of blue, the sunlight bright, the air very still and very cold. Her eight-dog team was covering ten miles an hour, not bad at all on an unbroken trail and pulling about a hundred pounds of weight in the toboggan sled.

“Raven! Gee!” The main trail intersected with a cutoff that would loop around and take them home. Raven pulled to the right as ordered, taking Cookie and the rest of the dogs with her. “Good girl, Raven! Good girl.”

Common sense? Hah! The man was hopeless. He would most certainly die out there in that trapper's shack on the Flat this winter. He would starve to death trying to feed his dogs. He would freeze to death trying to keep a fire in the woodstove. Common sense, indeed! What on earth possessed him to think he could come into this wild land and survive?

And now she was stuck with taking care of him and his dog team, all of which made her wonder just how much common sense she, herself, had. She laughed aloud, the noise startling her dogs and causing them to break their gait and glance back at her. “It's okay, gang.
Good dogs. All right.” They faced front again and their tug lines tightened as they forged ahead. She could still picture Mac sitting on the bunk with that old wool army blanket pulled around him, his broad shoulders bared to the chill of the room. She hated to admit it, but Sadie Hedda had been right. William MacKenzie was one long, tall, handsome man—even if he didn't have one shred of common sense. He had something else, though, something she couldn't quite fathom….

Rebecca shifted her weight on the sled runners, bent her knees and bobbed up and down to warm up the backs of her calves. Her toes were cold even in her heavy boots. This was nothing new. Her toes and fingers were always cold from October until May. It came with the Territory.

“Okay, you huskies, pick it up!” Cookie and Raven broke into a lope at her words, and moments later they were heading home. The trip back would be quicker on the broken trail, and she'd have time to run one more team before she had to start evening chores. The other dogs in the yard heralded her arrival, and Rebecca was surprised to see her red plow truck parked in front of the main cabin. As she looped her snub line around the hitching post, securing the team, Sam stepped out onto the porch. At the same moment, Ellin emerged from the guest cabin. Ellin's face was radiant as she strode across the dog yard.

“Rebecca,” she said as she approached. “We're taking Mac over to our place. Sam's rigged a sled behind the Bombardier for Mac to lie in so it'll be an easy trip for him. He can stay in the boys' room for now and move into the cabin when he's ready.”

Rebecca unsnapped the dogs' tug lines and began stripping the polar fleece booties from their feet. “Ellin,
you and Sam have enough to do without taking care of an invalid.” She reached for the stack of galvanized feed pans and dropped one into the snow in front of each dog, then opened the prepacked cooler to give each some broth thick with chunks of liver.

“He won't be an invalid for long, Becca. Sam could use some help around the place, and the way I see it, God has provided it in the form of this nice young man.”

Rebecca straightened, one mittened hand pressing into the small of her back. She looked at Ellin and sighed. “You do have a way of looking at things.”

“He's going to be a big help to Sam. If he can do all the things Sam thinks he can, Bill MacKenzie will be worth his weight in gold. After all, he did fix the Bombardier, and that thing hasn't run since the turn of the last century.”

“He's a big man, Ellin,” Rebecca cautioned. “Probably eats a lot.”

“I cook a lot. Can't get out of the habit after raising four boys. There'll be plenty to eat. And Sam has fixed up one whole end of the hangar for the dogs.”

“You're taking his dogs, too?”

“Of course! It'll be fun having a dog team around the place again. I miss them.”

“Take some of mine!”

“Becky, I've said it before and I'll say it again. This is too much for you. You can't go it alone.”

Rebecca bent to pick up the empty feed pans. “I have another team to run, Ellin.”

“Yes, I know,” Ellin said curtly. “And another team after that, and then there are the chores to do. The wood to split, the water to lug, the dogs to feed.” She sighed. “Well, my dear, I've had my say and as always, it's
fallen on deaf ears. I really think all mushers have dog biscuits for brains!”

“I love you, Ellin Dodge, and I always will,” Rebecca said, arms full of feed pans. “But I have to do things my way.”

Thirty minutes later she was out on the trail again with another eight-dog team and Ellin's words echoing in her ears. Her neighbor was right. It was too much. There were days when Rebecca felt like giving up, days when everything piled up in front of her like an unscalable mountain, days when she was so lonely and exhausted that she would drop her head into her hands and weep like a baby. Those were the bad days, and while not all of her days were bad, they were all long and lonely and hard, and they were making her hard in ways she didn't like.

Bringing coffee and breakfast to Mac this morning was the first time she'd felt like a woman since Bruce's death. There was no denying that the simple act of handing Mac a cup of coffee had made her feel good inside. And the way he'd looked at her had made her feel… He had made her feel… Oh, for Pete's sake!

“Twister! Get up, you lazy beast!” she chastised a young wheel dog, whose job was to run directly in front of the sled. “I'll feed you to the wolves if you don't pull your weight!”

Ellin was right about Sam. He did need help. Sam and Ellin's boys had all become very successful, but none of them had wanted to remain in the Yukon. Sam had given up the mail route he used to fly two years ago. He probably shouldn't be flying at all, but she'd like to see anyone try to keep that old man out of the sky. And then he'd gone and bought that old wreck of a Stearman with the dream of restoring it to its former glory. Rebecca
shook her head. It was true about men. They never grew up. They were just boys grown tall.

“Come on, Minnow, you can do it. Good girl!”

Well, anyhow, she was rid of Bill MacKenzie. He'd be gone when she got back and she could spruce up the guest cabin and get it ready for her first clients, who would be arriving in a few weeks—and none too soon. She desperately needed the money the dogsled tour would generate.

Three hundred yards from the cabin she stopped the team, snubbed the sled to a nearby spruce and loaded the toboggan bed with six armloads of the firewood that had been cut to length and stacked beside the trail. She used dog power to pull the load to the cabin and had barely finished watering, snacking and unharnessing the dogs when a familiar truck bounced into the yard. The cab door opened and Sadie Hedda jumped down, waved, then grabbed her parka and shrugged into it as she crossed toward the guest cabin, one hand clutching her medical bag.

“He's gone, Sadie,” Rebecca called, tossing the wood from the sled onto the cabin porch.

Sadie turned to stare at Rebecca. “Gone? Gone where? My Lord, Becky, the man was seriously injured, and he was in no shape to be going anywhere! I know you didn't want him here, but surely you didn't drive him off!” She was walking rapidly toward Rebecca as she spoke.

“No, Sadie, I didn't. Ellin and Sam have adopted him. If you want to do a follow-up exam, you'll find him there.”

Sadie was visibly relieved. “Rebecca,” she said. “I know it's none of my business, but where did you find that guy?”

“I didn't find him! He came here to buy dog food.” Rebecca continued to unload the firewood. “He's Brian MacKenzie's older brother and he's taking care of Brian's dogs for the winter while Brian finishes his degree at the university. He says he's going to race the team and expects to do very well. He thinks there's nothing to mushing, that it's easy as beans and anyone can do it. And, oh, by the way, he's also planning to win the Percy DeWolf.”

Sadie grinned. “Where's he from?”

“Dunno. But he was in the military. Some kind of mechanic, I think.”

“Mechanic,” Sadie said, eyes narrowing appreciatively. “Mechanics can come in awfully handy around here.”

“Yes. I'll be glad when he fixes his truck and gets it out of my driveway.”

Sadie shoved her hands in her parka pockets and frowned at Rebecca. “I know he owes you money, but is that the only reason you dislike him so? I mean, you have to admit that he's the best-looking thing to step into the Territory in a dog's age. Does he smoke?”

“Nope. At least, I don't think he does.”

“Good! I like the idea of a Marlboro man without the cigarettes. By the way, if you're throwing him back, throw him in my direction, would you?”

“He's a free man,” Rebecca said as she threw the last log onto the porch. “But, Sadie, it wouldn't be a bad idea for you to stop by Sam and Ellin's. Your patient looked kind of off-color to me this morning. I think he might be running a fever.”

“A fever! That's not good at all,” Sadie said ominously. “I'd better get over there straight away.” Without another word she marched back to her truck, jumped
in and roared off. Rebecca eased a cramp in the small of her back as she watched Sadie disappear. She longed to sit down in the rocker beside the woodstove with a cup of hot tea, but there was no time. She had to mix the dog food, fill the wood box, haul endless buckets of water up from the springhouse, and then feed the dogs before full dark. It was going to be cold tonight. She needed to be sure that each dog had enough straw in its house to make a warm bed.

No time for tea. No time for herself. And certainly no time for anyone else, especially a helpless cheechako like William MacKenzie.

 

I
T TOOK FAR LESS TIME
than Sadie had predicted for Mac to recover from his injuries. Within a week he was up and about, doing light chores over Ellin's protests, but by the end of the second week he counted himself cured and was taking care of his dogs when he wasn't helping Sam work on the Stearman.

In his third week at Sam and Ellin's, he used Sam's old Jimmy to haul his dog truck from Rebecca's driveway to Sam's hangar where, with Sam's help, he replaced the U-joint. The next day he drove his truck to his brother's place on Flat Creek, picked up his few belongings, the two dogsleds, feed dishes, the harnesses, gang lines and other assorted mushing paraphernalia, and returned to the little cabin on Sam and Ellin's property. The day after that, he began training his dog team.

The trails around the Dodges' place were the same trails that Rebecca trained on, so Mac had anticipated that they'd run into each other frequently and had been looking forward to it more than he cared to admit. But during his first week, he saw no sign of Rebecca. He finally mentioned her absence to Ellin.

“She's probably out on a trip with some clients,” Ellin explained. “She usually heads down toward Guggieville or up toward Inuvik. You might swing by her cabin and see if Donny's old blue Chevy is there.”

“Who's Donny?” Mac asked.

“Donny's a good kid. He takes care of Rebecca's kennel when she goes on her trips. He's Athapaskan.”

Mac spent the rest of the afternoon splitting firewood for Sam and Ellin, but the next morning, bright and early, he was on his way to Dawson City, where he sold his Rolex for far less than it was worth. He drove directly back to Rebecca's with the money. She wasn't there, but Donny was.

“She could be gone two, three more days,” the young man said in answer to Mac's question. “Maybe more, maybe less. Hard to tell sometimes. Three Japanese clients. Big money.” He smiled broadly.

Mac left an envelope for Rebecca. He'd sealed a brief note inside, along with the money from the sale of his watch, promising to pay the balance by the end of February. Mac had big plans for February, and if everything worked out, he'd have more than enough to pay off his debts and buy more dog food. Feeling pretty good about things in general—better than he'd felt in more than a month—he returned to Sam and Ellin's place and harnessed a team of dogs for a training run. Sam came out of the hangar to watch him take off. “You might try the trail that leads down to the river,” Sam shouted over the frenzied barking of the dogs. “The Mazey Creek trail. The river's frozen solid and it's fine traveling right now—you can make a lot of miles on it. Good training!”

Mac nodded, pulled the release knot on the snub line, and the team shot down the trail at warp speed. Mac loved the takeoffs best of all, the wild, blind explosion
of power and speed that catapulted the sled—with him hanging on for dear life—down the narrow twisting path that led from the Dodges' cabin out onto the main trail, which, in turn, led to the river. He'd avoided running the river before because of the rough pack ice. But Sam was right. If he was going to make good in February, he'd need to start putting longer miles on his team.

When he reached the main trail, he gave Merlin the command to turn to the right. “Gee, Merlin!” He grinned, as the big, handsome, blue-eyed, black-and-white husky veered unerringly to the right. “Good dog!” The idea that one could steer sled dogs with mere voice commands was still novel enough to astound him. Driving a big team of dogs was like driving a freight train from the rear of the caboose without the benefit of rails to keep the train on track, and without a steering wheel to make the turns. A good lead dog like Merlin made the job easy. A simple verbal command and the entire train turned smoothly to the right or the left.